Christology
Kenosis and the Incarnation
In becoming human, the eternal Son 'emptied himself,' taking the form of a servant without ceasing to be fully God.
The doctrine explained
Philippians 2:6-7 says Christ Jesus, 'though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.' This kenosis ('emptying') language has generated an entire branch of Christological reflection on what, precisely, the Son gave up or set aside in becoming incarnate, and how this can be reconciled with the classical Chalcedonian affirmation that the incarnate Son remained fully, unabbreviated God throughout his earthly life.
Classical interpreters (patristic through Reformation) generally read Philippians 2 as describing not a subtraction of divine attributes but an addition of a human nature and the assumption of a servant's role and status: the Son did not empty himself of deity but of the outward display, prerogatives, and glory rightly his, veiling his divine majesty (though not his divine nature) under the form of a lowly servant. On this reading, the eternal Son remained omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent according to his divine nature throughout the incarnation, even while his human nature experienced normal human limitation, growth, and ignorance (Luke 2:52, Mark 13:32).
Nineteenth-century 'kenotic Christology,' associated with Gottfried Thomasius and later some British theologians, proposed instead that the Son genuinely and temporarily divested himself of certain divine attributes (typically the 'relative' attributes such as omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, while retaining 'essential' attributes such as holiness, truth, and love) in order to live a genuinely limited, developing human life, reassuming the relinquished attributes at the exaltation. This was motivated partly by a desire to take with full seriousness texts describing Jesus' apparent ignorance (Mark 13:32) and growth (Luke 2:52) without resorting to a merely apparent, two-track consciousness.
Critics of strong kenotic theories, from multiple traditions, argue they risk denying the very deity they claim to explain, since divine omniscience and omnipotence are not accidental properties a divine being could shed and later resume while remaining the same kind of being; if God essentially has these properties, a being without them (even temporarily) simply is not, during that time, fully God. Contemporary defenses of a modified 'ontological kenoticism' attempt more careful, philosophically rigorous versions, distinguishing which divine properties are essential versus contingently exercised, but the underlying tension between full incarnate limitation and full retained deity remains one of Christology's hardest unresolved technical problems.
Biblical basis
- Philippians 2:6-8The Son, in the form of God, empties himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling himself to death.
- Mark 13:32The Son does not know the day or hour, only the Father — central to debates over incarnate limitation.
- Luke 2:52Jesus grows in wisdom and stature, suggesting genuine developmental limitation in his humanity.
- John 1:14The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.
- Colossians 2:9In Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, a key text constraining kenotic subtraction theories.
- 2 Corinthians 8:9Though he was rich, for our sake he became poor, so that we might become rich.
How the wording developed
- 1st centuryPaul uses kenosis language in Philippians 2 within a hymn urging humility, likely already a pre-Pauline Christological confession.
- 451, Council of ChalcedonDefines Christ as fully God and fully man in two natures, unconfused, unchanged, undivided, and unseparated, the framework within which any theory of kenosis must operate.
- 17th century, Lutheran orthodoxyDebates between the Giessen and Tübingen theological schools over whether the incarnate Christ possessed the divine attributes but merely concealed (Tübingen: krypsis) or genuinely emptied himself of their use (Giessen: kenosis) during his earthly humiliation.
- 1845-1860sGottfried Thomasius develops modern kenotic Christology, proposing a genuine, temporary divine self-limitation in the incarnation.
- Late 19th-20th centuriesBritish kenoticists (Charles Gore, P.T. Forsyth) popularize kenotic theology; it declines in mainstream influence through the 20th century amid Chalcedonian and analytic critiques, though it persists in modified forms today.
Misunderstanding vs. the actual claim
Not this: Kenosis means the Son stopped being God during the incarnation.
But this: Classical orthodoxy insists the Son remained fully God throughout; kenosis describes a self-humbling assumption of servant status and human limitation in his human nature, not a suspension of deity.
Not this: Jesus' statement that he did not know the hour proves he was not fully divine.
But this: Classical (two-natures) Christology attributes such statements to the limitations of Christ's human nature and mode of consciousness, without thereby denying the divine nature's omniscience.
Not this: All kenotic theories are heretical departures from Chalcedon.
But this: Moderate 'kenosis of function/status' readings are widely regarded as compatible with Chalcedon; it is specifically the strong 'kenosis of essential divine attributes' theories that draw the sharpest orthodox criticism.
Where Christians differ
- • Classical/Reformed and Catholic Christology reads Philippians 2 as a kenosis of status and glory, not of divine attributes, preserving full and continuous deity throughout the incarnation.
- • Lutheran Christology, given its distinctive view of the communication of attributes, has historically debated whether Christ concealed (krypsis) or genuinely limited the use of certain divine attributes during his earthly humiliation.
- • Modern kenotic theologians (a minority, largely 19th-20th century Protestant) hold a genuine, temporary self-limitation of certain divine attributes, a view most other traditions regard as exegetically unnecessary and theologically risky.
The hardest question
If divine omniscience is an essential property of God, such that nothing lacking it could be fully God, how can classical Christology consistently affirm both that the incarnate Son was ignorant of the day and hour (Mark 13:32) according to his human nature and that he remained fully, undiminished God throughout, without this collapsing into either a denial of true ignorance (Docetism in a subtler form) or an implicit division of the single person of Christ into two separately conscious subjects?
For further study
Primary and secondary sources on both sides of this question. Reading the strongest opposing case is part of the work, not a concession.
Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity — Larry Hurtado
The definitive study of how quickly Jesus was worshipped, based on the earliest evidence.
The Incarnation of God — Thomas Weinandy
A careful account of Chalcedonian two-natures Christology and the objections against it.
The Myth of God Incarnate — John Hick (ed.)
The classic revisionist challenge to incarnation doctrine; the position orthodox Christology must answer.
Jesus and Judaism — E. P. Sanders
The historical-Jesus framework most contemporary scholarship still works within.